Copenhagen talks get complicated

The word on the street in Copenhagen this week

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final ruling that greenhouse gases endanger human health, allowing it to put limits on emissions even if U.S. lawmakers fail to pass a law to achieve the same objective.

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Walter Cronkite: “We are here this evening, not only to protect our own interests in the bountiful sea — but to represent the interests of those who could not be here tonight. Creatures with eight legs, shiny scales, striped feathers, and funny-looking faces. We have a responsibility to represent the interests of other living things with whom we are sharing this planet.”

It was Walter’s fascination with the natural world that won the hearts of scientists. By luck, I had the honor of writing scripts like the one above for him that heralded the earth. In 1981, at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, we were delighted to hear that Walter Cronkite would produce the CBS Cronkite Universe Series upon leaving the newsroom for good. Greeting him in our lab, I met a talented gentleman who shared a passion for broadcasting the wonders of our planet. We coined it ‘Earth’ advertising.

Once on location for the Universe Series, Walter descended into the submersible Alvin to eyewitness bioluminescence in the sea firsthand. He paused on the ladder as I held up his script cards. It was then when I first noticed he wasn’t looking at the camera like most newscasters, nor did he appear to be reading the script. He poetically rewrote it in his head as he spoke from his heart. His mind was more of a marvel than his subject matter. The man was talking directly to the people of America. He addressed them as though engaged in lively dinner conversation, unaware that the world sat on the edge of their seats, waiting to hear what he had to say.

As a young radio announcer back in Kansas City, or elsewhere along his way, Walter became the one in a million, authentic voice that could cut through the clutter. Maybe it was when he met his wife Betsy, a beautiful quick-minded advertising copywriter to whom he often gave credit. As a team, they experienced the power of media to influence people’s thinking. Though he never got into advertising, he had a lot to say about it. Mainly that news had been cut to the bare bones to make more room for commercials. When they posed as content, it was an insult to our collective intelligence.

“The nation whose population depends on the explosively compressed headline service of television news can expect to be exploited by the demagogues and dictators who prey upon the semi-informed,” he wrote in his 1996 memoir, “A Reporter’s Life.”

Once, I gave Walter a lift to La Jolla from the Coastal Processes Lab where I worked at Scripps, and we stopped at the grad student weekly TGIF. It dawned on me at the age of 22 that everybody worshipped this man, not just my dad’s generation, but people of all ages, from all walks of life. We drove on up the hill and along La Jolla Cove in my old rust bucket of a car. Pedestrians swarmed us at a stop sign, but with a reverence I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t like the Beatles, or even a president. It was more like a pope.

Stuck in the traffic, our conversation turned to how we might best translate and prepare scientific knowledge for public consumption. How to engage Homo sapiens in the healthy future of all species, including our own. How to share the enormity and complexity of nature as a force to believe in, rather than reckon against. He was mesmerized by the planet, and the universe beyond. To the very end, Walter’s curiosity had the innocence of a little boy with a magnifying glass.

For the next 20 years, we’d make time to sail out of Edgartown harbor and brainstorm how to harness curiosity about the natural world, to keep up the spirit for seeking the truth. He believed that people would align with their belief system when it came to the environment if the path was laid out, and that advertising had to take that bull by the horns because maybe nobody else would. This is how Walter was with people. Some say it was his depth of conversation that spurned the Egyptian Israeli Peace Treaty.

The struggle between news information and advertising may be age old, but Walter got to see a shift, a new chaordic order. The great melting pot of new media leaves no place for information to hide from those willing to seek it out. This is why responsible brands will shine through the eco-darkness. There are signs all around us that “green” is now getting a little more popular, greenwashing aside.

A year or so ago, I called Walter to find out how he wanted to be listed on a project we were working on together. “How about ‘executive Producer’?” I asked. He countered with the word ‘journalist,’ and we pondered adding the title of ‘explorer.’

As Americans, we’ll always remember the newsman who was at once the keel of the ship, the wind in the sail, the tiller on course, and our moral compass for a time. We stand here on this humble shore, shining a lantern upon him as he disappears into the fog, out of our world and into that one frontier we all can’t explore together. Goodbye to Walter from the advertising world– we’ll try to keep it honest.

Written by Martha Shaw, President, Earth Advertising

Martha is founder of Earth Advertising and eFlicksMedia, an agency established in 1998 to represent the best interests of the planet. She is a Fellow of the Explorers Club, recipient of top creative awards in media, and member of socially responsible business organizations, media panels and scientific advisory boards. She lives in New York and Martha’s Vineyard with her family.

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NEW YORK, Nov. 18 /CSRwire/ – Earth Advertising marks a 10-year benchmark with new communication tools: interactive CSR reports, web series, and games. (See “Selling Without Selling Out” web series trailer: above)

Earth, the ad agency best known for its supporting role in the growth of eco-preneurs, celebrates 10 years today at a time when sustainability marketing is booming. “At the beginning, we were the only green marketing agency in the U.S., according to Adweek.” said Martha Shaw who founded Earth’s studio eFlicks Media in 1999. “Now, corporate America is embracing environmental issues and that’s good for our entire industry. A rising tide floats all boats.”

With its 360° approach to pr and media, the agency has a history of hitting the sweet spot where creative messaging, brand authenticity and new media tools converge. That approach has worked to put many of today’s leading green companies, organizations and issues in the limelight, including clean technologies, organic foods, car concepts, and non-toxic household goods. Beyond commerce, Earth has worked to empower women scientists, support local living economies, and promote renewable energy.

Selling Without Selling Out: Eco-preneurs and Wall Street

A recent Earth Advertising e-series is Selling Without Selling Out. The web commentary features some of the most prominent environmental entrepreneurs of our time, sharing their challenges of gaining distribution, market share and capital. These often lead to mergers with multinational corporations, where contrasting priorities play out. These founders offer their experiences and discoveries. “Hold on to your principles and be willing to walk away from the deal,” says CEO and Founder Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm, an organic producer and distributor of yogurt, milk and other dairy products. Selling without Selling Out also features the founders of Honest Tea, Odwalla, Dagoba, and other leading brands, including the board of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.

CSR Reports: Corporate transparency, accountability and new regulations.

“CSR reports are a relatively new communications tool,” says Stuart Ross, Communication Director at Earth Advertising who came from Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and has a history with corporate marketers including PepsiCo. “Increasingly, CSR reporting is becoming legally mandated. We can help clients get to where they want to be from a reporting standpoint, and then share their best practices with the world.” Regulators aren’t the only ones asking for CSR reports, all stakeholders are asking questions, he noted. Earth creates multi-media CSR reports that convert to video, web content, lobby and tradeshow displays, commercials, training tools, and interactive games for setting internal goals and measuring achievement.

A whole new language that explains and entertains with CSR.

CSR has its own vocabulary and it’s universal. As more companies share their best practices with the world, the greater the groundswell. CSR reports identify new metrics of sustainability, from impact, footprints, resource consumption, waste diversion, energy consumption, offsets and product lifecycle, and social and environmental justice.

The digital footprint.

One project of the firm is helping to measure the environmental impact of the industry itself. A friend of Earth Advertising, SustainCommWorld founder Lisa Wellman said, “Advertising can educate and inform, and can be a powerful driver for positive action – or not.” Don Carli, Fellow of the Institute for Sustainable Communication is an advisor to Earth and agrees, “By its very nature, advertising itself calls into play a great deal of energy and materials. It’s good to see agencies like this taking it on.”

One of Earth’s media directors has been a producer of games for children since the first interactive products, bringing hundreds of interactive products to the marketplace for AT&T, Simon & Schuster and Paramount. “Earth has some interesting interactive projects in development that are proprietary,” says Diane Strack who believes in the power of gaming to create behavior shifts. “We’re in the early stages of one game that is competitive, reaps instant rewards and makes it fun to know about trash.”

New media partner for Green Drinks.

When commerce and environment come together, great things can happen. Earth Advertising is a founding member of SBNYC and media partner with Green Drinks, the watering hole of NYC’s green jet set that has been unifying the community for 8 years, and is now in 650 cities. The big holiday party is featuring the great aquanaut and heroine of the sea, Sylvia Earle. “We’ve been connecting people to collaborate on business, make friends, find jobs and experience moments of serendipity,” says Margaret Lydecker, Founder of Green Drinks NYC. “Don’t miss it on December 8th.”

Talented people join the agency to work on marketing they care about.

The company was formed to concentrate marketing experts and talent with common interests under one logo, including moms. This has meant creating an environment that has room for family.

Like others on the team, brand strategist Nancy Orem Lyman brings a wealth of experience from a career with multinational brands. “To work with companies and organizations just starting to embrace a sustainability agenda, and those who are leading the way, is rewarding.” says Nancy, who is also founder of the Women’s Climate Initiative. “When you take the power of advertising and apply it to brands and initiatives that motivate others, change can happen very quickly.”

LINKS

Zmags is a leader in Interactive Collateral Materials and Management–reducing print and distribution costs while presenting content in an engaging format that is user-friendly. Zmags sample of Earth’s work”

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/440142a6

Earth Advertising on JustMeans:

http://www.justmeans.com/companies/earth-advertising/139192.html

Shop Green Mall, green retailers pooling their resources and keeping cash in the community :

http://www.shopgreenmall.net

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CO2 technology is just the tip of the iceberg for Green Apple Cleaners

NEW YORK, NY,. – JUNE 10, 2008 – It was good news for Manhattan this week when Green Apple Cleaners bought its second state-of-the-art Solvair Cleaning System. Dry cleaning’s “green revolution,” the Solvair technology uses liquid CO2 and is the only technology designed from start to finish to achieve better cleaning while minimizing impact on the environment.

Solvair Cleaning Systems use a closed loop system designed to eliminate emissions to the atmosphere and ensure maximum reclamation of recyclable materials. A biodegradable cleaning formula helps remove dirt and stains. One element of this formula, chosen for its safe profile and cleaning ability, is a propylene glycol ether that is completely and readily biodegradable into water and CO2. These propylene glycol ethers should not to be confused with ethylene glycol ethers, the variety found in products like anti-freeze.

“As dry cleaners struggle to meet environmental regulations that require costly new equipment, misleading “organic” and “natural” claims by some traditional cleaners keep customers guessing about what is really green,” says David Kistner, the CEO of Green Apple Cleaners. “Solvair is the real deal.”

Liquid CO2 in a pressurized machine is used to wash the cleaning formula from the clothes. This CO2 has been captured from other emission sources, thus avoiding green house gas release. The eco-safe formula is attracted to and thoroughly removed by the liquid CO2, and continually recovered, recycled and reused within the machine for maximum efficiency. Clothes float in liquid and CO2 vapor, cushioned from tumbling damage. The pressure in the machine is then reduced until the liquid CO2 evaporates. Clothes dry completely and instantly leaving clothes free of stains, dirt and residue from other dry cleaners. This gentle process noticeably helps prolong the life of the garment.

According to David Kistner, reduction in energy consumption is a welcome side effect. “We’ve seen a 52% reduction in our utility costs since we started using Solvair.”

CO2 technology is just the tip of the iceberg for Green Apple Cleaners.

The only two Solvair Cleaning Systems in the New York Metro area are both owned and operated by Green Apple Cleaners, founded by eco-entrepreneurs David Kistner and Christopher Skelley. This New Jersey based company has served Manhattan and select areas of New Jersey with environmentally friendly CO2 and Wet Cleaning services since 2006. The two new Solvair Cleaning Systems cost more than $150K each, but Green Apple Cleaners thinks they are well worth it. “We set out to offer our customers premium care and cleaning of garments and other items they entrust to us. Customers trust us to treat the world around them carefully as well. We chose Solvair machinery not just because it gets clothes cleaner, but because it is the only process to integrate environmental stewardship into its design.”

Green Apple Cleaners as a company is eco-conscious throughout its entire operation. Their fleet of bio-diesel ready trucks and smart cars is a welcome sight in Manhattan, where they pick up and deliver garments in their signature garment totes to over 450 residential and commercial buildings, and 10,000 clients. Though the bulk of their business is pickup and delivery, they have already opened two storefront locations in NYC and two in New Jersey with seven more planned this year. For more information or to sign up for services, visit www.greenapplecleaners.com or call 1-888-I-LUV-CO2 (1-888-458-8262).

For more information, please contact:

David Kistner Green Apple Cleaners
Phone: 1-888-458-8262

Earth Advertising
Phone: (212) 933-1391